Cited by 133Microbial Community Ecology and PhysiologyMarine Biology and Ecology ResearchMarine and coastal ecosystems

Cross-depth analysis of marine bacterial networks suggests downward propagation of temporal changes

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Cram, Jacob A, Xia, Li C, Needham, David M, Sachdeva, Rohan, Sun, Fengzhu, Fuhrman, Jed A·2015·The ISME Journal

Abstract

Interactions among microbes and stratification across depths are both believed to be important drivers of microbial communities, though little is known about how microbial associations differ between and across depths. We have monitored the free-living microbial community at the San Pedro Ocean Time-series station, monthly, for a decade, at five different depths: 5 m, the deep chlorophyll maximum layer, 150 m, 500 m and 890 m (just above the sea floor). Here, we introduce microbial association networks that combine data from multiple ocean depths to investigate both within- and between-depth relationships, sometimes time-lagged, among microbes and environmental parameters. The euphotic zone, deep chlorophyll maximum and 890 m depth each contain two negatively correlated 'modules' (groups of many inter-correlated bacteria and environmental conditions) suggesting regular transitions between two contrasting environmental states. Two-thirds of pairwise correlations of bacterial taxa between depths lagged such that changes in the abundance of deeper organisms followed changes in shallower organisms. Taken in conjunction with previous observations of seasonality at 890 m, these trends suggest that planktonic microbial communities throughout the water column are linked to environmental conditions and/or microbial communities in overlying waters. Poorly understood groups including Marine Group A, Nitrospina and AEGEAN-169 clades contained taxa that showed diverse association patterns, suggesting these groups contain multiple ecological species, each shaped by different factors, which we have started to delineate. These observations build upon previous work at this location, lending further credence to the hypothesis that sinking particles and vertically migrating animals transport materials that significantly shape the time-varying patterns of microbial community composition.

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  1. Dabney A, Storey JD. (2004). Q-value estimation for false discovery rate control. Medicine 344: 539–548. [Google Scholar]

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Authors
Cram, J. A., Xia, L. C., Needham, D. M., Sachdeva, R., Sun, F., & Fuhrman, J. A.
Affiliations
University of Southern California (US)
Corresponding author
Cram, Jacob A
Venue
The ISME Journal
Published
2015-05-19
Volume
9
Issue
12
Pages
2573-2586
ISSN
  • 1751-7362 (ISSN-L)
  • 1751-7370
OpenAlex
W1568481479
Cited by
133
References
63
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1
FWCI
5.73
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The ISME Journal (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Marine Biology and Ecology Research
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Marine and coastal ecosystems
Keywords
microbial co-occurrence networks, deep chlorophyll maximum, oceanographic time series, sinking particles, vertical migration, planktonic microbial communities, Nitrospina
MeSH terms
Animals, Bacteria, Plankton, Seawater, Biodiversity

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